


Siren Song

by Lokei



Series: The Blackbird Prince [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fae & Fairies, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, New York City, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 15:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/pseuds/Lokei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine's just looking to break up a life that's become too routine.  Checking out a new restaurant in his neighborhood turns out to be more adventure than he'd bargained for when it turns out he's strolled into a Fae hangout he shouldn't even have been able to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Siren Song

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://triflesandparsnips.tumblr.com/post/75033566049/catyuy-the-cimmerians-he-looks-like-a%20).

It’s  not so much that today was a terrible day, as it was the capstone on a month or more of moderately ugly ones, and Blaine has reached the end of his ability to cope with how mundane his world is.  As a kid, even in his teens, he had this sense that the world was full of mysteries and opportunities, and that if he just believed hard enough, it would turn out that the occasional bout of tinnitus really *was* fairies talking to him, or the leftover sounds of a time traveler heading home.  If he just worked hard enough, people would get past the fact that he was short, and gay, and talked like a cross between an old Hollywood leading man and an inspirational poster slogan.  If he just dreamed big enough, he’d find the place where he fit in.

But here he is in New York, City of Dreams, and he still is missing...something.  His job’s okay: he hadn’t expected to end up working for a non-profit that teaches music and music production to juvenile delinquents, but it’s a worthy cause.  His coworkers and handful of friends are mostly around when he wants them.  He dates occasionally.  But for every really good moment: a kid mastering a tricky guitar chord, a night out with the guys, finding the perfect karaoke song for his mood--there’s just a sea of blah, and if Blaine didn’t know himself to be a fundamentally happy person, he’d be worrying that he was sinking into some kind of depression.

It’s not depression.  It’s just boredom.  Which is maybe worse, because depression would be outside his control, and instead Blaine is grumpy at himself for being bored when there’s really nothing wrong with him or his life.

So it’s a fit of pique, really, that sends him out of the subway station a full four stops too early on his homeward trek.  Fresh air, what there was of it on an Indian summer September afternoon in the City, would be good for him.  Riding under the streets is boring, of course it is.  The city is always changing, and so should he.  A variation in commute is a good start.

The sunlight is nice, actually, and sure, Blaine can’t afford to live in the most awesome parts of the City, but his neighborhood’s not bad, and the buildings aren’t so tall that you’re walking in concrete canyons, and there are trees and the occasional funky shop facade.

Actually, there’s a pretty stunning one right across the road, an Art Nouveau masterpiece of arched wood and Tiffany windows.  Blaine stares, positive he’s never seen it before, and wondering how everyone else around him can just be walking by like it doesn’t exist.

 _Siren Song_ , the door sign reads in glowing amber stained glass, surrounded by amazingly delicate flowered vines in jewel tones.   _Enchanting Food and Beverages._

Blaine’s stomach growls and something in him stretches, quietly hopeful.  Blaine checks for oncoming traffic and hurries across the street before things like budgets and the leftovers that are waiting at home for him in the fridge deter him.

The door is surprisingly cool to the touch given the day’s heat, and a curl of music--something Celtic sounding--comes through as Blaine hesitates on the threshold.  It reels him in, a faint smile on his face as he pushes open the door.

He steps through, and it’s as if the world has frozen around him.

He’s not sure what’s more startling: the light or the silence.  Given the stained glass facade, he’d expected a dim Bohemian kind of interior, but instead there’s brightness everywhere, late afternoon sunlight pouring in from some kind of skylight or light well, and glinting off dozens of mirrors and chandeliers and bottles of cut glass on gleaming light-wood shelves and polished marble tabletops.

Not to mention the eyes of the two or three dozen silent patrons, all of whom are staring at him with a curious intensity.  Even the band of musicians in the corner have bows and instruments raised while they regard him unblinking.

Blaine starts to think this is a bad idea.  Has he interrupted a private event of some sort?  He rocks his weight back, about to reach for the doorknob, when there’s movement at the gleaming bar, and the most stunning man he’s ever seen slips off a bar stool and approaches with an ethereal smile on his pale face.  His hair sweeps straight up off his face with a touch of curl, and he walks in his dangerous looking white boots and tight black jeans like he’s never tripped in his life.

“Welcome to the Siren,” he says in a lilting voice, eyes bright over his dark fur vest and intricately lacyshirt.  “What’s your pleasure this fine evening?”

There’s a snicker somewhere deeper in the bar, and the look the man throws over his shoulder is spine-tingling in its cold command.  The noise stops abruptly.

“I, um--dinner?” Blaine tries.  “But if you’re closed for a priv--”

“Nonsense, we can definitely do dinner,” the man answers.  He holds out a hand.  “I’m Kurt, and this is my humble establishment.”

Blaine licks his lips.  “I’m not sure ‘humble’ is the right word,” he says without thinking, then blushes and shakes Kurt’s hand as the other man smiles.  “I’m Blaine.”

Sound gradually resumes around them and Kurt leads Blaine to a corner booth, pretty much the last open table in the cozy restaurant.  The dove grey velvet of the seat cushions feels just ridiculously decadent as Blaine sits.

“Wow.  You must spend a ton of time cleaning,” Blaine says--and really, what is up with his filter tonight?  But fortunately the owner--Kurt--laughs.

“Less than you might think.”  He slides into the booth across from Blaine and taps the table with long fingers.

“We mostly have a small crowd of regulars, and they’re remarkably good about not dropping food or spilling wine on my upholstery.”

“I guess that would explain why I got the stranger’s welcome at the door, then,” Blaine is relieved.  “I thought maybe one of the JD kids had pinned something to me again and I hadn’t noticed.”

Kurt smiles and cocks his head.  “Out of curiosity, how did you find us?”

Blaine shrugs.  “I was just walking home and it kind of...called to me.  I guess you named it well, ‘cause I couldn’t resist.”

One of Kurt’s eyebrows goes up and he smiles like he knows something Blaine doesn’t.  Normally that would bug Blaine, but for some reason, on Kurt he doesn’t mind so much.

“Food,” his host says.  “I’ll be back.”

Kurt slips out of the booth with more grace than that maneuver should be able to contain and goes over to the bar to speak with someone behind it.  Blaine twists in his seat to try to watch him go, wishing he’d sat on the other side, facing out towards the rest of the room.  He usually does, he likes people watching, but for some reason, it hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility.  

While he’s turned around, he does as much surreptitious observation of the rest of the clientele as he can.  

There’s something...off about them.  Eyes a little too bright, features a little too sharp, movements not quite right, too fluid and too angular by turns, the murmur of conversation not quite the usual pitch and resonance of this many people in this size space.  Kurt doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would be slipping drugs into his guests’ food, but the overall air is kind of manic and then mellow by turns.

Blaine appears to have walked into a bit of a mystery, and while he should probably be concerned, he’s more intrigued than anything else.  That should probably concern him too, but he seems to have left his capacity for self-criticism at the door.

“Well that looks delicious,” drawls a voice from the side of the booth, and Blaine spins back, expecting to see food having magically arrived on his table despite not ordering anything yet.  All he sees is a tall, skinny man with hair swept nearly as high as Kurt’s, with deep brown eyes and a smirk across his face as comfortable as worn jeans.  He’d be fairly attractive if Blaine didn’t have a far more remarkable example immediately to mind.

“Excuse me?”

“Polite, too.”  The smirk broadens.  “Mind if I join you?”

The stranger gestures towards the empty bench and Blaine’s hit with such a sudden sense of wrong that he actually flinches.  “Uh, I--”

“Sebastian, what have I said about your tendency to invite yourself places you’re not wanted?” Kurt steps up beside the newcomer and Blaine breathes out a hopefully inaudible gust of relief.

Sebastian’s answer makes no sense to Blaine, though it makes Kurt’s eyes go iceberg sharp.

“Keeping thralls now, are we?  Quite a turnaround for you.  How the moral have fallen.”

“He’s no thrall,” Kurt bites each word out with precision.  “And someone who hasn’t the guts to swear to any Court has no place here.  I have no patience with your cowardly attempts to play both sides against the middle.”

“Oh, but the middle’s so much fun, don’t you think?  We three could test it out--I’d even be generous and let you be it.  Offer’s still open to help you loosen up, after all.”

Blaine had been fairly lost until the section of this conversation that dripped with innuendo, and now he flushes at the implications.  “I think you’re being a little inappropriate.”

“For more than one reason,” Kurt glares, and Sebastian looks momentarily cowed.  

He rallies, though, for a parting shot.  “Enjoy your meal.  Still think it looks delicious.”

And he’s gone, with more of that too-quick, too-jangly movement, like there’s more to his body than can be seen.  Kurt sits across from Blaine with a sigh.

Blaine looks at him for a moment.  Bites his lip.  “What.  What was that?”  He tries for curious, not accusatory, but fears it ends up somewhere around bewildered.  He thinks what he meant to say was more Who are you?

Kurt meets his eyes, and suddenly his gaze seems weighty, old and sad and nearly unbearable to hold when paired with that sweet smile.

“I am Kurtayalin Hummeldrin Oisheen, Blackbird Prince of the Seelie.”  He gestures around him.  “This is my Court, at least the piece of it that accesses the mortal realms.”  His lips twitch.  “If you think this is grand, you should see the ‘cellars.’”

Blaine blinks at him, knowing his mouth is moving but glad there’s no sound coming out as he’s pretty sure he has no words for this moment.

“By all the rules that govern our existence, you shouldn’t have even been able to see the Siren Song, let alone actually walk in here.”  Kurt shakes his head.  “But there’s something about you, Blaine.”

“Anderson,” Blaine offers, feeling stupid as soon as the syllables are out of his mouth, but hey, that filter’s still failing him.  Maybe it’s this place.  He hasn’t consumed a thing but he feels drunk.  “Blaine Devon Anderson.  Originally from Ohio.  I teach music to help people and I have no idea why I’m here but you’re the most astonishing person I’ve ever seen.”  He finally manages to stop himself and buries his head in his hands to the sound of the Prince’s gentle laughter.

“Blaine Devon Anderson.  Not bad, but you will need a more evocative name if you intend to stay, Goodheart.”

That brings Blaine’s head up with a snap.  “Stay?”

Kurt’s eyes aren’t as sad any more, but Blaine doesn’t know how to categorize the emotion swimming through their unclouded blue.  “There are only three ways a human ends up in the Court of the High Fae, Blaine.  They may be captive thralls, they might possess a modicum of magic of their own, often because they have Fae blood in their family tree, or they are the destined match of a Fae powerful enough to call them to the Other Side.”  He pauses.  “No one in my Court keeps thralls if they know what’s good for them.  And you walked through my Doorway on your own, Blaine.”

“So...am I magic?”

Kurt’s face twists.  “About as much as my boots, I’m afraid.”

Blaine’s a bit disappointed, but he musters a grin anyway.  “They are pretty amazing boots.”

 

“That they are.”  Kurt’s tone implies he’s not just talking about the boots, but Blaine needs to be sure.  

“So I’m someone’s match, then.”  Blaine wishes he had a drink, a fork, something to fiddle with to occupy his hands and his gaze because he’s sure his face is an open book to this apparently incredibly powerful magical being.  He hasn’t wanted anything this badly in years.

“You are.”

Of all the times for Kurt to decide to be unforthcoming!

“Not,” Blaine takes a deep breath, eyes still on the faint patterns in the marble.  “Not Sebastian’s?”

Kurt’s hand fists on the table.  “That jumped up interloper?  If he weren’t one of mad Queen Mab’s favorites I’d have turned him into a pigeon decades ago.”

Blaine looks up.  “Pigeon?”

Kurt relaxes his hand and waves it.  “Blackbird Prince.  Bird transformations are one of my specialties.  What better fate for that strutting, cooing puffer than to be a rat with wings?”  

Blaine giggles and Kurt grins back, then sobers.

“Of course to be fair to the pigeons, and to give Sebastian his due, they are both survivors.  Irritating, but adaptable.  And a terrible fit for you.”

Blaine meets Kurt’s eyes.  “What sort of a bird am I, then?”

Kurt lays an open hand on the table between them.  “I don’t know yet.  But I’d like to spend a few centuries finding out, if you want me.”

Blaine’s hand hovers over Kurt’s, but he can’t take hold quite yet.

“I’m human, Kurt.  I’ll be lucky to have a century.”

Another Fae turns up then with a beautifully plated salad and cut glass tumbler with glimmering golden liquid inside, which he places in front of Blaine.  On top of the salad sit six ruby pomegranate seeds.

Blaine stares at them, wonders if Hades was as appealing to Persephone as Kurt is to him.  Wonders if anyone could be.  

“There’s truth and power in the old stories,” Kurt says.  “And all those things you wished for, when you were younger?  They exist.  All those places you wanted to go, things you wanted to try?  We can do them, together.  Just take a bite, and then take my hand.”

Blaine’s hand is still hanging mid-air.  “Would you have told me?  Before I ate?  If Sebastian hadn’t interrupted?”

Kurt sighs and draws his hand back, making a complicated gesture at the mirror above their booth.  The glass surface ripples and darkens, swirling like a spiral armed galaxy and then clearing to show a modest shingled house with a garden at the top of white cliffs overlooking a sea the color of Kurt’s eyes, birds of all sorts wheeling overhead.

“I would have shown you this,” he whispers.  “The Court is a necessary thing, but this is my home.  This is where I am most myself, and where I would like us to live, at least some of the time.  I would never keep you against your will, anywhere in my realm.”

His hands drop back to his lap and the mirror once again shows nothing but the innards of the Siren Song.

All his life, Blaine has felt like he was being pulled elsewhere, like his eyes just couldn’t quite focus on the here and now.  

But here and now, everything in him reaches for the being across the table, with his regal carriage, sharp cheekbones, and soft eyes.  

“How did you know I had all those dreams and wishes?”

A smile, warmer than any he’s seen so far.

“Because you wouldn’t be my match if you didn’t.”

  
Blaine picks up a pomegranate seed.


End file.
